Thursday, November 15, 2012

A Peek into my Video Game Design and Development Courses

Recently @techucation reached out to ask for some resources and ideas related to teaching Video Game Design and Development. I responded to his inquiry and realized it would serve as a worthwhile blog post to share with the educational community. Below is a general description of my 7th and 8th grade courses. In 7th grade, I teach a six week introduction to video game design and digital storytelling. In 8th grade I teach a full semester course in video game design and development. I have also developed and teach the full semester course as an online high school course for The VHS Collaborative (http://thevhscollaborative.org/). I hope you find the information helpful as I would love to see more courses evolve that teach important 21st century skills through game design. Currently, I am enrolled in the doctoral program in Educational Technology at Boise State University and the focus of my research is the pedagogical benefits of game design and development. Some of the concepts I find most worthwhile to research further include constructionism, design based thinking, increasing female involvement in computer science, and ultimately the notion behind developing a scalable curriculum to teach game design and development from upper elementary school through high school.

Gamestar Mechanic is a great point of entry (and beyond). My 7th graders spend about 3 weeks in a unit using Gamestar Mechanic (http://www.gamestarmechanic.com). In that unit, I have them work through the Free Quest Line (Addison Joins the League) which takes them through the 5 episodes ending with the ability to create original games from scratch. After that I have students create their own game. Typically, it is a 5 level game of increasing difficulty that exemplifies good game design principles. Prior to starting their game I have them complete a design document that is used for brainstorming / pre-writing.

For the 7th graders, I encourage them to earn some of the extra items through the workshop (i.e. the message block, etc. as I emphasize the importance of the story being told within the game (not just in the game and level descriptions). They can also earn extra credit by doing the 2 premium quest strands (Addison Joins the Rogue and Dungeon of the Rogue). They also benefit by earning extra items to use in their game through those quests. Gamestar Mechanic also has a number of teacher resources including curriculum, student challenges, etc. available at http://gamestarmechanic.com/teachers/what_is_gamestar)

I highly recommend licensing the premium quests for your class. Gamestar recently implemented a new licensing program that costs $2 per student account and the students keep the premium account for life. What a great way to encourage continued game design beyond the course!

My 8th graders primarily use Game Maker (http://www.yoyogames.com) and they learn the basics and create at least 4 original games (a simple maze game, an adventure game, a platformer, and a scrolling shooter). I offer a bonus opportunity for students to engage in reverse engineering and recreate a classic game (arcade or console).

My final unit with my 8th graders is a project using Portal 2 and the Puzzle Maker. You can find out more about the Teach with Portals program here: http://www.teachwithportals.com/. My students play through a reasonable part of Portal 2 to understand the basics of the game and then create their own puzzles using the iterative design process of planning, creating, testing, and refining.